— Success Story —  

In the blog article "Shared Desk - back to the office of the future" from 12 October 2022, Silke Riedl, Assistant to the Head of Information Management, describes how she experiences the introduction and restructuring to desk sharing with desk.ly in her department. 

As her department is the pilot area for the shared desk model at Krones AG, she describes her everyday work, the desk booking system and the redesign of the office space that took place in the course of this.

1. Krones AG — company details

The Krones Group was founded in 1951 and has its headquarters in Neutraubling, Bavaria. 
As a manufacturer of lines and machines for producing, filling and packaging beverages and liquid foods in PET and glass bottles and beverage cans, Krones' products cover the entire production, filling and packaging process in the manufacturing plant. Added to this are other solutions, such as those involving digitisation, for recycling plastics, or in the field of intralogistics. 
While the German subs (Neutraubling, Nittenau, Flensburg, Rosenheim) mainly produce the new machines and lines, the group generates almost 90% of its sales abroad. 
Over the years, Krones has grown strongly. The company now employs around 16,300 staff in more than 100 locations worldwide.

2. Challenge — Is different better after all?

As in many other companies, the Corona pandemic shifted part of the work to the virtual world within a very short time. 
Especially at the beginning, working from home was a new and unusual experience for many employees, which took some getting used to. 
But in the meantime, the employees no longer want to miss some of the advantages of remote work, such as the possibility to work in a more concentrated way or the travel time savings. At the same time, they still value the personal exchange with colleagues in the office. 

In order to react appropriately to the changing mood, Krones AG was faced with the question of how to integrate virtual working and develop it further.

3. The implementation with desk.ly

A first step was to increase the orientation level for remote work to 50% of working hours. As a result, only some of the employees are in the office at the same time and therefore the same number of office workplaces is no longer needed. Thus, a shared desk solution was needed. 
Accordingly, there are no personally assigned workplaces in some areas of the company, but only a defined number that is shared by the respective team. 
This not only means that less workplaces are needed, but also that the office space can be completely redesigned. In order to be able to use the workplaces in a coordinated manner, desk.ly was introduced as a pilot project in Silke Riedl's department.

In addition to technical and ergonomic upgrades, more furniture has also found its way into the Krones AG department: the space saved by having fewer desks makes it possible to focus, in regards to the interior design, on collaboration and turn the office into a meeting place for teamwork, creativity, brainstorming, discussions and social exchange. 
In addition to the spatial redesign, author Silke Riedl particularly raves about the newfound freedom to decide for herself when she wants to work in the office and when she wants to work from home.

"By redesigning the office space, attractive workplaces and various spaces of retreat were created in order to combine work and communication as optimally as possible. The workplace in one's own home usually does not offer these possibilities. I therefore appreciate the flexibility to choose the place of work according to my upcoming tasks.
Because fact is: hybrid work is here to stay."
- Silke Riedl 

You can read Silke Riedl's full report in Krones magazine.

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